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The question for Ms Clarke was on why is tackling risk is so important not just for the world humanitarians but also for
sustainable development.
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Thank you, one of the themes which UNDP run
through all the major agenda setting conferences last year was that if
development isn’t risk informed it cannot be sustainable development, at the
most fundamental level we see natural disasters either shaking down or
washing away or drying up development gains and so not to approach
development with a risk informed lens is to endanger every investment that’s
made in development and to probably set development up for very significant setbacks
and indeed for the scale of humanitarian response that is sadly so often in
call before. If we were looking just
at times of risk around the natural disasters clearly where you build your
infrastructure, the strength to which you construct it, the level of
engagement with your community and being aware of risks and being able to
participate in and help direct the nature of risk reduction, these are all
highly relevant to sustainable development but then I think the sessions are
also calling our attention to interconnected risks and I think if we look
at…what are the real risks to not achieving a goal like sustainable
development goal one on the eradication of extreme poverty, what we will see
I think is increasing the extreme poverty concentrated in a cluster of
countries with certain characteristics which will be deep and entrenched
inequalities, poor governance, risk of conflict and exposure to natural
disaster and these things all tend to of course reinforce each other in a
downward spiral to crisis so I think we need to be very conscious of the
interconnected risks and address them comprehensively and that is why a
summit like this one which is very much seeking to bring the shared analysis
of humanitarian’s development act, human rights act as peaceful as whatever
analysis, bring these analysis together and scanning the horizon to see where
the risks are. In a sense we know
about the natural disaster risk, it may not be that easy to overcome in the
year of climate change when we’re looking at worsening weather for the next
60 or 70 years but I think we more or less understand what has to be done
with these more complex interconnected risks in countries which are fragile
which is the hardest way we’ve come and sadly have seen some of the most
profound calls for humanitarian relief at this time.
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A follow up question sought to draw Ms Clarke's
opinions on the future vision for sustainable development…
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Well I might and address the platform just so the
total support of … there’s been a
lot of consultation go into the global risk platform and I think it can only
be a good thing but I really want to concentrate my comment on sight, if
we’re going to get risk informed development when we build and support
national and local capacities to drive that development so often these
discussions about us as developing the national development or other
organisations but development has to happen in countries, it has to be led by
governments, local, sub-national, by communities, it falls to society to
participation. I was thinking as I was
listening and particularly to …
about some of the really exciting things you see at the local level with
governance taken into their own hands to really push ahead. I remember back
in the early in the second decade of this century there was an appalling drought
in Niger, people died. By the time the
next one came Niger had taken action itself, it used to have partners
supporting them but it came up with its own programme for food security and
called it Nigerians Nurturing Nigerians, the three N’s campaign and as a
result of that they have in place an early warning system that told them that
another bad drought was coming but there was time to get systems in place and
growing the international pathways and so on. That’s in the basis for moving on to other initiatives, I think the
insurances it spreads has an enormous role to play in getting the local
products that support the small holders in … countries like it. I can
think of another example in Kenya, this is an example they did to
prices. The 2007 election was not a
good experience in Kenya, it was a bad experience but the experience was that
where the local communities and their local peace architecture because they
knew there was potential risks, they could hold in peace and that was then … next time to have a peaceful
election so my plea really is can we all acknowledge that we’re in this
business to support locals and national …
building the capacity to do it themselves, that’s development, that’s how
we’ll truly sustain the risk in formal development.
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Many thanks to Ms Emma Hall for the transciption :)
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